JOURNAL OF THE NORTH-CHINA BRANCH OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. ARTICLE I. NOTES ON CHINESE COMPOSITION.* THE BY HERBERT A. GILES, H. B. M's Consular Service, HE Figures of Rhetoric have been scientifically classified as follows: I.-Figures of Similarity. 1.-Simile. 2.-Metaphor. 3.-Personification. 4.-Allegory. II.-Figures of Contiguity. 1.-Metonymy. 2.-Synecdoche. III.-Figures of Contrast. 1.-Antithesis. 2.-Epigram. 4. Climax. 5.-Interrogation. Read before the Society on the 28th October, 1881. MBW 6.-Exclamation. 7.-Apostrophe. 8. Innuendo. 9.-Irony. and it is in accordance with these divisions and sub-divisions that the following Notes have been prepared. This subject has been treated more or less at length by several writers on Chinese composition; notably, by Prémare in his Notitia Lingua Sinica, by Gonçalves in his Arte China, and by Watters in his Essays on the Chinese Language. Neither, however, of the above-mentioned three authors have attempted anything like classification; Prémare and Gonçalves having mixed up Figures of Rhetoric with Figures of Syntax, indiscriminately, while Watters in his otherwise scholarly and valuable Essays seems to have included all figures of similarity and contiguity under the one head of metaphor. For instance, Gonçalves gives under Syntaxe Figurada (p. 179) Climax, Metaphor, and Metonymy, as well as a whole host of such figures as Polysyndeton, Epanadiplosis, Antanaclasis, etc., etc., legacies from the schoolmen of ancient Greece, who by their pedantic refinements would have reduced the art of rhetoric to the level of a mechanical toy. And Watters (China Review, V., p. 215) speaks of "that kind of metaphor by which the part is made to represent the whole or the individual the species," this being of course the separate figure of synecdoche; while of the three illustrations adduced, namely, for person or individual, p for sect or school of philosophy, and for pork, only the last one falls under the head of synecdoche, the two first being excellent examples of metonymy. CLASS I. 1. Simile. This figure consists simply in likening one thing to another. The things compared must, however, be different in kind; and the comparison must not be pushed to excess, or it degenerates into hyperbole (7. v.). The choice of similes by Chinese writers presents but few points of special interest, being in fact, with due allowance for difference of environment, almost identical with that dictated by the canons of western literary taste. Life is compared with a dream, death with sleep, rosy cheeks with peachblossoms, etc., etc. E. G.: eyes as black as lacquer. : spokes and axles like clouds (in number); sc. many chariots. See synecdoche. : a mouth like a knife; sc. cutting in speech. T: her tears fell like rain. A tipsy man is said to be "as drunk as mud,” in reference to a certain marine creature which when taken out of the water lies like a lump of mud, thus affording an instance of a simile within a simile. The poet Li T'ai-poh likened man in his mortal state to the dust on the high road, blown hither and thither at the caprice of every changing wind: 人生無根带 飄如陌上塵 He likened the moon-beams playing on the floor round his bed to hoar-frost lying on the ground: 床前月明光 疑是地上霜 He also compared the human face with the flowers of the garden, and found that neither yielded in beauty or expression to the other: 花面不相饒 So, too, we read in the Hung-lou-mêng (ch. VI.) of P'ing-'rh, she was as beautiful as a flower and as bright that looking as the moon. 2. Metaphor.-Some readers may possibly be glad to be reminded that a metaphor is simply a simile in a word, the metaphorical application of the word being altogether foreign to that in which it is commonly employed. Of all figures of speech this is the one most constantly to be met with in Chinese literature, a fact to be ascribed in a great measure to the peculiar nature of the written language. For instance, the Chinese say "iron proofs" for the more expanded "proofs as irresistible as iron," reducing the simile to a metaphor by a process of condensation which is the alpha of success in every department of Chinese composition. Thus we have : a willow waist. 櫻唇: cherry lips. : A: a "fowl's sinew" man; sc. a very thin man. : a "fly's head" affair; sc. tiny, much as we say "pin's head." the foot of the hill. : 父母官: and so the matter slept; sc. dropped. "father and mother officials"; sc. magistrates who are entrusted with the more im mediate welfare of the people at large. 偶有所欲意一萌而婢巳致之: whenever he wanted anything, the thought would hardly sprout before the maid had brought it to him. : so as to leave no handle for ridicule. washed by the rain and combed by the wind (said of the hardships of travel). "a bushel room"; sc. a small room, no bigger than a bushel measure. "bushel characters"; sc. enormous characters, as big as a bushel measure. Mixed metaphors are to be found in Chinese as in other languages, occurring sometimes in the works of the best authors. The following example is taken from the writings of Lan Lu-chow: |